What A Day - System Of A Lockdown

Episode Date: November 16, 2020

The federal government still hasn’t affirmed Biden's victory, blocking him from the White House access he needs to get a handle on the transition and the government's pandemic response.America has n...ow surpassed 11 million COVID-19 cases, and the virus is still predominately affecting Black and Brown Americans. Some states are taking sweeping actions to slow rising case numbers, like New Mexico and Oregon, which have both reimposed lockdown measures.And in headlines: new NYPD data show the limits of independent oversight committees, leaders from 15 Asia-Pacific countries sign the world’s largest free trade deal, and Chad Wolf’s moves to limit DACA weren’t legal.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 It's Monday, November 16th. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick. And this is what a day where we are hoping that Trump will concede now that he's had a parade. Yeah, I mean, usually when you lose, you don't even get a parade and you got that. So, you know, kick rocks, get to stepping. Yeah. Bounce. Normally, normally you just go home and cry, you know. Right. On today's show, the worsening COVID-19 crisis in the United States, then some headlines.
Starting point is 00:00:39 But first, the latest. He won because he got more votes. OK, that's why he won. He got more votes in the popular vote by a lot. And he won the same number of electoral votes that President Trump himself called a landslide four years ago. But look, if the president's prepared to begin to recognize that reality, that's positive. Donald Trump's Twitter feed doesn't make Joe Biden president or not president. The American people did that. What we really want to see this week, Chuck, is the General Services Administration issue that ascertainment so we can start to do the kinds of things you and I talked about a few minutes ago, meet with these vaccine officials, kind of get the intelligence briefings
Starting point is 00:01:14 for the president-elect, the vice president-elect. That's really the measure of how this is moving forward. That was Ron Klain, President-elect Joe Biden's new chief of staff on Meet the Press yesterday, talking about a tweet from President Trump that seemed to acknowledge that Biden won the election before he later reverted back to his usual divorce from reality. Klain was also discussing what the Biden transition is doing and what it's being kept from doing by this White House. But before we jump into that, he also mentioned that Biden now has 306 electoral votes. Yeah, that's right. So 306 is the new final number for Biden. On Friday, several media outlets finally called the last two outstanding
Starting point is 00:01:50 states. Georgia went for Biden and North Carolina, which went for Trump. And after we finished recording last week, Arizona was also called for Biden, lending more credence to what was seen as an early call from Fox that really angered the president on election night. And some history here. It's the first time since 1982 that Georgia has voted for a Democrat for president and the first time since 1996 in Arizona. So that's pretty big. And that cumulatively gives Biden 306 and Trump 232, the exact electoral college spread that, as Klain mentioned, Trump officials called a landslide in 2016. Additionally, Biden's popular vote lead is at more than 5 million at
Starting point is 00:02:25 this point. And then in this next week, several states will officially certify their election results. We're going to keep an eye on that given all the frivolous lawsuits the Trump campaign has been filing to delay deadlines to certify. For what it's worth, on that point yesterday, the Trump camp retreated on a major one of their lawsuits in Pennsylvania. So again, the trajectory does not seem to be good there. And in the certification process this week includes Georgia, where a hand recount is being conducted at the moment. And according to the New York Times, local officials in the state have to submit their updated counts by Wednesday night before the state certification deadline on the 20th. All right, well, back to the transition. So last week, we talked about Biden not getting
Starting point is 00:03:02 the White House access he needs and concerns about what that could mean for national security. Now we're starting to hear more concerns about what it could mean for COVID response. Yeah, that's right. So Dr. Fauci was interviewed on CNN yesterday, and he talked about the challenge of not being able to have the current COVID task force formally coordinate with the Biden transition team, especially during the most perilous moment in the pandemic thus far. Well, Jake, as you know, I've been through multiple transitions now, having served six presidents for 36 years. And it's very clear that that transition process that we go through, that time, the period of measured in several weeks to months, is really important in a smooth handing over of the information as well as it's almost like passing a baton in a race. You don't want to stop and then give it to somebody. You want to just essentially keep
Starting point is 00:03:49 going. That's what transition is. So it certainly would make things more smoothly if we could do that. So just as a public health measure, you think it would be a good idea if your team would be able to work with the Biden-Harris transition team right now, just in terms of what's best for the public health of the American people? Of course, Jake, that's obvious. Of course, it would be better if we could start working with them. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense. More pointedly to Dr. Atul Gawande, a member of Biden's COVID advisory board, said that it's necessary to begin this work to get a sense of what the vaccine distribution plan looks like right now, the current status of PPE in the country, and where various stockpiles are. And as a reminder, the Biden team can and does continue to do its own
Starting point is 00:04:33 work to prepare for the new administration. But the official holdup is related to the General Services Administration. That's that agency that basically manages all other agencies throughout the federal government and has frankly never been as famous as it is right now. But as we're speaking, the GSA administrator, a Trump appointee, hasn't sent what is called the letter of ascertainment, meaning that we're in a kind of limbo between a lame duck president who doesn't want to do anything and the incoming president's team. That letter frees up funding and formally links the teams in the current government with those set to take over. It does remain somewhat unclear what exactly the workarounds could be here, but I suppose we'll find out if this stretches on much longer.
Starting point is 00:05:10 Yeah, I hope it doesn't stretch on at all. And so what can the Biden folks do on COVID at the moment? And then what are they doing? Well, so one of the interesting things that Klain brought up yesterday was that Biden's scientific advisors are planning to meet with vaccine makers in the coming days. That includes Pfizer, which obviously had the big announcement last week that their initial analysis of early data showed that their vaccine was at least 90% effective. So that's a helpful step for their team, of course, but Klain was also emphasizing that they're going to need to review the distribution plans developed at the current
Starting point is 00:05:41 HHS and the Pentagon. So distributing the vaccine is going to be a massive undertaking. And there are tricky things to deal with, like cold storage, coordinating with the states, counties, harder to reach rural areas in the country, as well as how to prioritize our vulnerable populations. So we'll keep an eye on all of that, as well as what other data we might start to see from Pfizer and other companies that are working on vaccines. But Akilah, let's delve into the actual scale of the pandemic right now. It's kind of hard to comprehend. Yeah, it really is kind of hard
Starting point is 00:06:09 to even understand the scope, but top line info, America has now surpassed 11 million COVID-19 cases and the virus is still disproportionately affecting black and brown Americans. According to the CDC's latest numbers, Hispanic or Latinx people have been hospitalized at 4.2 times the rate of white people. Non-Hispanic Native American people have been hospitalized at 4.1 times the rate and black Americans at 3.9 times the rate of white people.
Starting point is 00:06:35 In terms of new cases, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo put it in really frank terms over the weekend that one in every 378 Americans tested positive for the virus in the past week alone. Let me repeat, in the last week alone. And any day now, we will reach the grim new total of a quarter million dead Americans in this pandemic. As of right now, the death rate is lower than in the early days of the pandemic, but the wave of cases we're seeing now is much bigger than at any other time. Remember, deaths lag new cases. So we're expecting to see the death toll rise, and it could spike to new record highs, especially if hospital systems become overwhelmed. Yeah, in just a week's span, we've added something like a million cases. So
Starting point is 00:07:14 the exponential growth here is staggering and worse than we've ever seen. And the message from health officials in those hotspots could not be more bleak. And I know that I ask this every time we talk about this, but are there any states putting in more restrictions now that the virus has reached a scary level? Yeah, and it kind of always shocks me because their recommendations are the same recommendations we've had this whole time.
Starting point is 00:07:36 It's just that, you know, for some reason, a lot of these states are run by officials who are incapable of learning from other locations' mistakes. But here are a few updates. New Mexico has issued a stay-at-home order for the next two weeks starting today. It's the most restrictive lockdown order of any state right now, and it's similar to the kinds of lockdowns we had when all this started back in March. Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Roswell, and pretty much every other city in the state is spiking, so
Starting point is 00:07:59 to me it makes a lot of sense. It's actually shocking that more states aren't following their lead. Another state taking action is Oregon, whose governor has instituted a partial lockdown starting Wednesday that orders gyms and museums closed, restaurants to suspend dining indoors and outdoors, and that social hangouts remain six people or fewer. In Virginia, Governor Northam hasn't called for a full shutdown, but has made the statewide mask mandate now applicable to children as young as five. And he put a 10 p.m. curfew on buying and consuming alcohol at restaurants and bars. Yeah, doing it up until 959 does not spread the virus only a 10. I'm only slightly kidding. And just yesterday, we saw Michigan and Washington also get tougher here.
Starting point is 00:08:40 Yeah, that's right. So Governor Whitmer in Michigan ordered a three week suspension of eating indoors at restaurants and bars or attending in-person classes at high schools and colleges. Her office called it a, quote, pause to save lives. For what it's worth, Trump's COVID advisor, Scott Atlas, responded by saying that people should rise up and not accept the policy. It's like he doesn't care that she was almost kidnapped. It's really stupid. Then Governor Inslee in Washington, who was one of the first governors to implement a lockdown in the spring, ordered fitness facilities and restaurants to stop serving people indoors and is limiting retail store capacity. And while, you know, obviously these restrictions are good and absolutely do help to
Starting point is 00:09:19 stop the spread, it's horrible that unlike in the spring, the U.S. government isn't offering relief money incentivizing us to stay home. We're one of the only affluent countries that has a government withholding emergency aid for citizens, and it's obviously contributing to the spread of the virus. So if you can stay home, please do. Always wear a mask. Keep your distance. We're going to keep you posted as this pandemic rages on, but that's the latest for now. It's Monday WOD Squad, and today we're talking about an epic distraction. LEGO announced their largest ever toy set yesterday, a model of the Roman Coliseum that has over 9,000 pieces. The set costs $550, which is a lot less than the real Coliseum, and it's available for purchase on Black Friday, November 27th. This could be a smart
Starting point is 00:10:17 purchase for those of us who have pandemic hobby fatigue after months of doing the same thing inside. Giddy, have you gotten tired of baking bread, roller skating, fill in the blank quarantine hobby, or have you somehow avoided it? I'm exhausted of any activity at this point by far. I have not done Legos though, and this is very, very enticing to me as a potential opportunity. Although 9,000 pieces, one, I have a large amount of concerns that I'll get to like page 25 of this sprawling manual. And you know, like one of the bricks is just going to be gone and I'm going to be like feverishly searching.
Starting point is 00:10:55 It's like, how do I identify the absence of said brick when there are 9,000? That makes a good, yeah, it's a really good point. I think you should count all 9,000 pieces before you start. Thank you, I agree. That's going to take at least a week, yeah, it's a really good point. I think you should count all 9,000 pieces before you start. Thank you, I agree. That's going to take at least a week, you know? That's right. We're just, we're killing time here.
Starting point is 00:11:10 This is what the goal is. And second, with all of these pieces, if I accidentally were to lose one and leave them out, I'm just setting traps for myself to have the most amount of pain that a foot can experience, which is getting one of them right in the arch. Yeah, they created those Legos with, with like hating parents in mind, for sure. Seriously.
Starting point is 00:11:29 But this is interesting. Maybe Legos will be the thing that brings me back from the brink. I definitely built a large space shuttle Lego set when I was younger and then crashed it into the ground when I was tired of it. That seems like a real missed opportunity to have that to show me right now. But you know what? Yes. Yes.
Starting point is 00:11:50 I apologize for not thinking through all of this at the time. But same question for you, Akilah. What quarantine hobby are you trying to get into at this point? Yeah. I mean, it's not going to be Legos. I got to say, I have this thing where like it's the same with puzzles, where if I know what the thing is going to become at the end, I have no it's not going to be Legos. I got to say, I have this thing where, like, it's the same with puzzles, where if I know what the thing is going to become at the end, I have no incentive to do it.
Starting point is 00:12:09 Like, I just am like, well, I can already look at the picture if I want to see it. You know, like, it exists. I don't have to be the one to make it happen. So it's not going to be that. But I've been really into painting my nails. The problem, though, is that, like, when you paint your nails, especially when you do them as well as I do, it's like a week and a half
Starting point is 00:12:27 before you have something else to do. And so then you're bored. And so I think maybe I'll try to get into real painting. But I also don't want to show people the art that I make because I think that that's the worst. I don't want people to tell me it's good. It's not going to be good. It's a means to an end.
Starting point is 00:12:43 Either reaction to the early work would be just something that totally fucks with your head. Right. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I just, I don't need anybody telling me if it's good or not. I don't care if it's bad. The whole point is just to waste time. And, you know, even just washing the brushes afterwards eats up time. Like I, I need to like, you know, do this until we get that vaccine. So yeah, setting up like the canvas space, maybe you got some tarp or something so it doesn't get on other things. I like this. This is a this is time consuming, taxing, too difficult for me, but I
Starting point is 00:13:15 think that you should definitely do it. I'll let you know if I do. And just like that, we've checked our temps. Stay safe, get a hobby, and we'll be back after some ads. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. In the last 20 years, the NYPD has largely rejected or reduced recommendations for discipline of its officers from an independent oversight agency. That is according to newly released data from the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which investiginary recommendations against officers were reduced or thrown out, even in cases where police officials confirmed that the officers violated regulations. The CCRB was created in 1993 as a response to claims that officers weren't facing consequences for harassment and brutality. However, the agency can't file criminal charges, can't impose discipline,
Starting point is 00:14:21 and is required to present their evidence to a judge appointed by the police department, the definition of stacking the deck. The data demonstrates the difficulties oversight agencies face when trying to hold police accountable, especially when the police departments control the process. Yeah, I can't imagine why anyone would want to defund them. Leaders from 15 countries across the Asia Pacific region signed the biggest free trade deal in world history over the weekend. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, was signed by countries including China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as 10 countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The combined GDPs of all the countries in the deal amounts to 30% of the world's GDP. It took eight years to reach the deal, which will eliminate a range of tariffs and add new provisions for intellectual property, e-commerce and more.
Starting point is 00:15:11 Leaders of the member nations say the deal will help their economies recover from the pandemic. And experts see it as a big step towards removing trade barriers and extending China's influence in the region. Acting Homeland Security Secretary and Trump appointee Chad Wolf doesn't matter. And that's not my opinion. It's actually the law. A U.S. district court judge ruled on Saturday the DHS illegally altered the order of succession to give Wolf his job. And as such, actions he took to limit the scope of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program, or DACA, didn't have legal merit. Mr. Wolf, your office was essentially a large playset for make-believe xenophobia. Wolf took aim at DACA in July after the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump
Starting point is 00:15:48 administration's decision to wind down the program in 2017 was unconstitutional. He counteracted the decision by barring new DACA applications and cutting the length of grants and work permits from one year to two. The judge in Saturday's case will hold conferences to work out the details of his ruling, but the effect seems to be that Wolf's move to limit DACA are void. So DACA is no longer suspended for new applications or two year renewals. Wolf's experience doing work that was actually not real will prepare him for whatever corporate job he gets after his time in the Trump administration. Well, city dwellers paying $2,000 a month to live in a converted grave with storage room for approximately one plate, I have two words for you.
Starting point is 00:16:27 Northwest Arkansas. Last week, an economic council there launched the Life Works Here initiative, which will pay people $10,000 to relocate to the area where the cost of living is far lower than in most large cities. Side benefit, if we get just half a million WOD squad members to take this deal,
Starting point is 00:16:44 we will have the numbers to flip Arkansas in 2022. Pretty sick. The program also includes a free bike, which is like a tiny second apartment on wheels and which new residents can use to explore the hundreds of miles of trails in the quote natural state. That's what they call that state. I think they could have, you know, maybe gone back to the drawing board, but fine. The natural state. The program seeks to capitalize on a new level of mobility among American workers, and it's not the only one. Tulsa Remote in Oklahoma offers $10,000 plus membership at a co-working space, which is no longer a perk and if anything is a threat. And in Kansas, there's Choose Topeka, which will give new residents $5,000 towards a one-year lease or $10,000 if they want to make the move official and buy a house.
Starting point is 00:17:28 It's all very tempting, but also good if you'd rather just relocate by switching your Zoom background from the WAP house to the Krusty Krab. I'm going to the Krusty Krab in the natural state, blending those two options. I think it's a good one. And those are the headlines. That is all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, assemble 9000 Legos and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just floor plans for apartments in the central U.S. like me, what a day is also a nightly newsletter.
Starting point is 00:18:04 Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And we'll see you at the Krusty Krab. It's just going to be me and Squidward and SpongeBob hanging out. Yeah. Their pizza is the best pizza. That's just facts.
Starting point is 00:18:17 For you and me. For all of us, in fact. What a day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tan is our assistant producer. Our head writer is John Milstein and our executive producers are Katie Long, Akilah Hughes and me. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kshaka.

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